April 18, 2012

Inline Hockey Club has final four finish in national tournament

The National Collegiate Roller Hockey Association held its national invitational tournament in Salt Lake City last week. The K-State team received a bid for our regular season play in the Great Plains Region. The tournament consists of a three-game round-robin series to establish seeding for the single elimination tournament.

The team left campus last Monday evening and drove to Salt Lake City. The tournament began at 7 a.m. Wednesday. Our pool was made up of Colorado State, Florida State and Texas State. We opened with 6-5 win over Florida. Next we battled to a 6-3 loss to Colorado State. Finally we beat Texas State 6-3 to be the second seed in our pool. The elimination tournament began Friday morning when we faced Chico State in an 8 a.m. game. Chico had a three-goal lead into the third period. We tied the game with 90 seconds left and scored the winning goal with 18.3 seconds on the clock.

This moved us into the Elite Eight, where we again had a battle with Kennesaw State. The game was tied 3-3 through two periods. Kennesaw took the lead 31 seconds into the third period. We tied the game at the 4:54 mark. We took the lead with 4.5 minutes to play. Kennesaw pulled their goalie with a little over 2 minutes to play, hoping for the equalizer. We scored two empty net goals to put that game away.

In the Final Four, we faced an undefeated Central Michigan squad who dominated their region all season. This was a tough opponent who beat us 6-2 and moved on to be the National Champions.

The team elevated their level of play every game. They are a credit to themselves and K-State. We are recognized nationwide for our professionalism and sportsmanship as well as our game play. Congratulations to the team for their hard work and success.